How much does Starlink earn in Italy and (how much tax does he pay), the satellite Internet service of Elon Musk's aerospace company SpaceX which manages to bring ultra-broadband at very low latency practically everywhere?
Second Tomorrow, “the billionaire's Italian earnings end up in tax havens that Meloni defined as «parasites to be sanctioned»”. In fact, the newspaper notes that in the last six months the navy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the civil protection, the fire brigade and the joint operational command have relied on Starlink satellites to obtain internet connection.
On the other hand, the Meloni government's talks with SpaceX to attract the American billionaire's investments in our country date back to last year, culminating in the agreement signed on 7 June 2024 between Telespazio (jv between Leonardo and Thales) and SpaceX to integrate Starlink into the global hybrid connectivity network and enhance the offering of communication services to institutional and industrial customers in the energy and maritime sectors. Among these also Defense.
From the beginning, that announcement was considered a prelude, the first of many others hoped for by the country with the various ministers (from Salvini to Urso to Crosetto) who met SpaceX delegations in the last year.
Because Starlink satellites guarantee access to the Internet globally regardless of terrestrial connections, even in the most remote areas of the world.” The allocations almost never exceed 15 thousand euros, but they demonstrate that the most important entrepreneur of the moment for Giorgia Meloni, Elon Musk has already become part of the suppliers of the Italian public administration” he specifies Tomorrow.
All the details.
STARLINK'S ENTRY IN ITALY
For some time the spotlight in Italy has been on Starlink, the satellite Internet service of Elon Musk's aerospace company SpaceX which manages to bring ultra-broadband at very low latency practically everywhere. Without forgetting the role played by the Starlink terminals donated by SpaceX to Ukraine at the beginning of the conflict with Russia which helped Kiev's armed forces maintain communications and coordination on the battlefield.
To date, the Internet service of Elon Musk's aerospace company has over 7 thousand active satellites in orbit around the Earth, which provide low latency broadband to more than four million customers around the world, of which only around 50,000 in Italy, precise Reuters.
And in mid-October Alessio Butti, undersecretary to the Prime Minister with responsibility for technological innovation, declared that the government is evaluating the use of Starlink to recover the delays accumulated by the companies in charge of the Italy 1 Giga Plan promoted by the Pnrr funds and implemented by Infratel for ultra-broadband in the gray areas, those with partial competition, worth approximately 3.5 billion euros.
THE PARABLE OF STARLINK ITALY TOLD BY ESPRESSO
A nice nest egg for Starlink Italy.
As narrated on October 18th The Express“the Italian branch of Starlink opened in a dilapidated building in Milan in December 2020. The budget before the Meloni government was the size of a used vacuum cleaner company. Not even one million euros in revenues, even less for investments.”
According to the weekly magazine directed by Emilio Carelli “2023 is a year of preliminaries. 2024 is a turning point.” In fact, let's go back to the agreement signed on 6 June 2024 by Starlink with Telespazio, mentioned at the beginning.
“The Ministry of Defense is a Telespazio customer and, in fact, immediately began using Starlink connections/communications for foreign humanitarian and rescue operations. A practical example: for an evacuation in Africa, in a crisis context, the Army can connect to Starlink satellites instead of encrypted military satellites” he reports the Express.
DELAYS ON GRAY AREAS
The undersecretary had emphasized the “situation inherited from this government and the difficulty of the operators in bringing connectivity to the country, particularly in the gray areas, in the areas in scattered houses, using the Pnrr funds, here there is obviously a risk of hit the European targets and therefore we intend to carry out experiments, pilots, using satellite technology at a complementary level, so satellite technology with mutation in the choices and then where there is fiber the signal travels on FTPH and where there are radio waves travels in these terms”.
TRIAL HAS STARTED IN THREE REGIONS
In light of this, Butti continued, “to do this we will start in some regions, notably Lombardy and we are choosing a region in the Center and a region in the South which have morphological characteristics that allow us to experiment with satellites and therefore we will do so, because we have no prejudice, we do not intend to undermine anything that concerns technological neutrality, if anything we intend to provide a service to the country”.
At the beginning of December, Reuters revealed that Italy plans to begin testing as early as January to see if the satellite connectivity offered by Elon Musk's Starlink is a viable solution to boost the country's high-speed internet rollout.
The tests are part of a pilot project, the results of which are expected as early as March, and will be open to several companies, including Starlink, according to sources Reuters.
STARLINK NUMBERS IN ITALY
According to data published in September by SpaceX, the company that controls Starlink, there were already 40 thousand subscribers to the internet service in Italy, recalls today TomorrowHowever, explains the newspaper, sand a common citizen buys Musk's internet subscription from Italy, however, the invoice does not come from Starlink Italy srl, but from Dublin. It is issued by Starlink Internet Services Limited, which collects revenues from Italy as well as from other European countries. In the end we land in the Netherlands, because the Irishman is controlled by the holding company Starlink Holding Netherlands Bv, he specifies Tomorrow.
THE TAX POSITION OF STARLINK ITALY SRL
“The Hague allows holding companies not to pay taxes on dividends received from foreign branches: it has been the house's specialty for years” adds the newspaper.
A practice targeted by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni herself: «Now sanctions against tax havens within the EU, starting with the Netherlands. Enough with the parasites who feed on our wealth and our work”, wrote Meloni in 2020. “Fighting tax havens in Europe drains Italy's resources,” he reiterated last year.
MORAL PROTECTORATE MUSK? MELONI REPLIES: “I DON'T TAKE ORDERS FROM ANYONE”
Meanwhile, last week the Prime Minister returned to respond on her relationship with Musk. There is no mention of invoices and taxes. In the Senate on December 18th, in the reply to the debate ahead of the EU Summit, Prime Minister Meloni declared: “To Senator Monti who spoke of Elon Musk's moral protectorate, I replied: 'I don't know what film you saw'. I can be a friend of Elon Musk and at the same time be president of the first government in Italy to pass a law to regulate private activity in space. Because I can have good relationships with a lot of people” but “I don't take orders from anyone”.
